Author's note: I am SO sorry for the lateness of this update. Granted, I had other things in my mind (aka the whole updating-so-I-can-breathe-ever-two-damn-days business), but that's no excuse. (bows a little) (gives cookies) (on reflection, gives more cookies)
Disclaimer: I don't think I'd be here writing fanfiction if I actually owned DC.
-
What's Unsaid – Tension
-
Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to happiness.
Bertrand Russel
Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking round in the daytime, and falling into at night. I miss you like hell.
Edna St Vincent Millay
-
The sunbeams were dancing lightly on the tiles of the deserted classroom, golden flickers swiftly swaying, gliding, disappearing on the smooth, shiny surface—
–she let the warm sunlight caress her face; beside her hands, her diploma was standing on the creamy surface of the desk. Sometimes, among the flood of memories she allowed to master her thoughts for the one last time—
–and walk down the corridor towards the stairs, it would come back down to an ordinary room, silent and empty but for those playful sunbeams.
Somewhere, in the small part of her mind that the dream couldn't quite reach, she felt she was bound to wake up, despite the struggling of the dream pinning her down to her bed, bound to wake up because something somewhere was important in the present, yet she wasn't quite sure—
–glance she suddenly wished she could have checked, Ran took in all his lean, tall figure – the dark hair, the pure lines of the profile, the touch of shade where neck met jaw, the shoulders, open and slightly broader than they used to be, the long, nervous hands—
–what. The white sheets entangled around her limbs, bidding her to the bed, keeping her prisoner when there was no escape from her head anyway.
"Ran," he said, with a sharp nod. His voice was deeper and more serious than she'd expected, and it caught her off-guard.
"Shinichi," she greeted, in as cold a voice as she could muster.
In the pale bedroom strewn with sunlight, on the grand double bed, she lay restlessly like some kind of madness-stricken person. Her hair scattered raven-black among the white pillows…
She knew exactly what it would all take – the shouting, the accusation, the quick succession of retorts shot from mouth to mouth that she had rehearsed in its merest details while she endlessly paced her room at night, unable to decide – what it would cost…
And all this crystallized into the dream, feelings and emotions that had been kept at bay for ten long years, that had been pushed away restlessly and yet kept coming back, and it was only now, in all the helplessness of sleep, that they finally took control of her senses and—
–an actual question, putting all the choices in her hands and leaving her to stare at them. He was looking at her with an air of mild curiosity, as though he was only waiting for her answer, as though it wasn't going to reassess the whole complex of their relationship—
–sensations. Looks and glares and laughs and talks and shouts and tears and calls and voices and—
–but pinning her down against hers, his thumb brushing down her chin and he was kissing her, one hand stroking her hair in her nape and the other flat on the desk, half-covering her own. And Ran – karate-champ Ran, kicking-ass-master Ran—
–sensations.
A fragile chiselled construction of glass, which has been thrown high in the air, has reached the climax of its height, and is slowly making to fall.
She jerked awake, and for minutes lay on her back senselessly staring at the ceiling, while the last pulses of memory eased and calmed their throbbing in the silence. She took long, deep breaths as she sat up, wiping sweat from her face, and gazed vaguely at the sunlight-bathed, window-shaped rectangle on the floor. The glow was less brilliant, less warm than it used to be, it was more autumnal; outside, the leaves were radiantly red and gold. That was changing, too – endlessly.
She was melting. She was melting in his arms and in the sunlight.
She shook her head and hastened out of bed. She was shivering with cold but she nonetheless flung the windowpane open, enjoying the way the lingering remnants of fantasy and confusion from her dream all drifted away with the morning's sunlight and warmth, and left her as only companions rational thought and sensibility. More than enough, considering the events of the day to come. Imagination left her mind like a bird taking flight, and she was brought with the more serious matter of her wardrobe.
She selected clothes, matched them, put them on, checked their effect in her mirror. Changed her lawyer's tight skirt for dark pants and a black shirt. All this black made her dressing strict enough, but the clothes themselves weren't too severe. It fit the circumstances. Her hair. She left it loose, having hesitated for a low knot – a sharp, tight bun would give her the looks of Sakagushi-san's.
Morning gestures – routine gestures – everyday gestures, and she accomplished them with vague eyes and a wandering mind. She rather felt like a soldier on the last morning of his leave; a few more hours of freedom and peace, and then back up to the front.
She glanced at the clock when she was done; it was half-past nine. Just enough time to take a rapid breakfast and then retreat within the boundaries of the library, with her dossier and her proofs, to sort out her notes and the letters and her share of reality more properly before she would have to hand them all over.
-
The drive was a pleasant one – or at least it would have been if he hadn't had other things in his mind, and had had leisure enough to watch the panorama. Forests and valleys and mountains elapsed by without his focusing on any other thing than the road, and his thoughts.
When he arrived within sight of the house, he stared at it like an awakening man, and as he pulled up in front of the grand building, got out of his car and walked up the steps to the main entry, he couldn't help remembering the last time he'd come here. It hadn't been a happy time altogether, but… it had had its moments.
The door was opened by a caricature of a butler, standing stiffly in a strict swallowtail coat, who bowed a sharp bow and said, in a pregnant voice, "Kudo-san? Mouri-san has been waiting for you. Please follow me." And ushered him in a collection of rooms and passages, without their ever meeting anyone else than a grey-clad maid who scurried away with a muffled shriek, like a small, frightened mouse.
Mouri-san. Yes, of course, she was Mouri-san by now. Likewise, her letter had been a polite, formal, business-only one, with a precision and accuracy that allowed no suspicions to rise: she was legally in charge of the case, and his presence had been requested by some of the guests she had mentioned, point made. Himself had been professionally interested in the problem, or – very likely – he shouldn't have come.
He and his guide finally reached a grand double door, masterly carved out of oak, whose pane the butler opened without knocking and then stepped aside to let him in. And for the first time in ten years, Shinichi was faced with Ran again.
For a fraction of second, the mere holding of one's breath, she was exactly like she had been at eighteen, sitting like she did at the windowseat, notebook and pen and papers laying abandoned on the desk before her, and her eyes fixed on the trees outside with her cheek leaning on her palm and a vague expression as though she had not heard the door open. She was wearing a black shirt that finely outlined her slender bust, and her hair tumbled down her back in a sculpture-like way, as long and black and silky as it had always been.
Never had she better deserved the codename that had long ago been given to her by a woman of masks and disguises: an angel, an angel of beautiful gravity shunted down on earth in an unexpected moment of grace, mislead and wondering, and, despite the black clothes and the sombre look, yet not quite fallen – not quite fallen.
"Kudo-san has arrived, miss," said the butler in a booming voice, startling them both. In a rapid succession of moves, Ran started, turned her eyes to them, opened her mouth, and finally thanked him. "Not at all, miss," and the door closed upon him, leaving them alone with the sunlight.
A beat.
Then the moment passed and she was advancing towards him with an outstretched hand, a polite smile, and on her lips a cordial, "Kudo-san? I'm glad you could come. Your presence was very much desired – by all of the guests. Do sit down."
Shinichi did sit down, turned down a cigarette – he had never smoked, neither had she, and she knew it very well – and demanded more precisions about the case before he did anything with it – refuse it or accept it. She then launched in a long, detailed narration, which he attentively listened to, while leafing through the dossier she had given him. It was evidently a lawyer's work: she had carefully labelled each and every one of the anonymous letters after the date and location it had been found at, and very minutely noted down every little event, however insignificant t first sight, that she had happened to witness. With this he should be able to work on this case as though he'd been there from the beginning.
She talked for the best part of a half-hour, and after a while he neglected the notebook and contented himself with listening to her. There were but little questions to ask – she gave the answers spontaneously, before he'd time to demand them. Each time she spoke with a smartness and acumen which honoured her work; he could hardly have done better himself. But even of that he tended to grow weary – the best surprise here was the mellow curves of her voice, the resurgence of memories, and the fact maybe that at twenty-eight she was even more beautiful, if possible, than she had been at eighteen.
Only once she stopped. She'd been frowning in disgust at one of the letters in the folder, which had evidently been addressed to her and represented a naked woman threatened by a sort of blind weapon overhead, and when surprised at her sudden silence he looked up, her cheeks showed a flush of embarrassment. His eyes met hers, and she looked startled, then hastily resumed her speech in a shaky voice that soon got firmer.
When she had finished, Shinichi sat a considerable time in silence, considering the problem at hand. The whole scheme looked like it was taken straight out of a mystery book – and, very probably, it was. The culprit had evidently fished his moves out of different detective novels here and there. The real feat was the success at combining those random pieces into an actual plot… but this kind of anonymous-letters-scheme had a snag, and an obvious one: the dropping of the cards was too irregular and too hazardous never to be surprised into doing something unexpected…
He'd kept silent for too long a time, and Ran – sorry, Mouri-san was wanting her answer. A hesitation here. His decision was taken, but the formality of the letter sufficiently showed that had the choice been on her side, the request would have been addressed to somebody else.
"It's a pretty problem," he acknowledged.
"Very pretty," she said acidly. "Yet my clients wish most of all to avoid scandal. We cannot let this continue much longer – there must be a solution, and we've got to find it quickly."
Vaguely noting, in some part of her mind, that 'they' had tended to become 'we' alongside her narration, Shinichi lowered his voice for no good reason – they were alone in the library, bar the sunlight – to say, "Listen. If you – don't want me here, I can call someone else to do the job. People like Hattori, or Hakuba – they would tackle this as well as I would."
He straightened on his chair and waited for her reaction. She was biting the inside of her lower lip, in an attitude that suddenly was no longer practical and professional – in flickers, Mouri-san was disappearing, and Ran – the eighteen years old Ran, only grown and knowing better – was showing up at intervals. She recovered her dossier to do something, fidgeted a second with a lock of black hair falling on her shoulder, then looked back up with a determined look and said, "I wouldn't trust them with this half as I would trust you, Shinichi-san."
It was like a breath of pure air combined with a cold shower. He remembered smiling, relaxing, feeling better in his body and in his mind – then the first thing he very distinctly recalled afterwards was asking after the exact number of guests and their names. From that moment on, everything was very business-like and easily led.
"Well – there's Asama-san, of course," Ran said thoughtfully. "It was he who first mentioned your name when we were all wondering who to call. He said he had met you, by the way, but didn't precise when nor where."
"Ah, yes," Shinichi had got out a notebook and was rapidly writing. "We met over a case I solved once. It was rather ironical – I accused the man he defended, and I suppose the culprit would have got away with ten more years' incarceration if anyone else had done the job. We talked after the trial – he is a sensible, very intelligent man."
"Very," said Ran, eagerly. "He is the reason I decided myself to become a lawyer – his impassivity and determination at court have impressed on me. I watched a broadcasting at fifteen—"
"I remember," Shinichi began and then cut short, and asked, who else.
"Sakagushi Shizue-san – I think you know her, as well." He nodded without looking up and went on writing unperturbed. "And someone else who said she had met you – I don't know if you remember her – Ikenami Inoue-san…"
"Ikenami-san?" He looked up, frowning. "Is she there, as well?"
"Yes," Ran confirmed, with a puzzled look. "Do you happen… I mean… do you know her well?"
"Well isn't the word," Shinichi said, still frowning. "We have met twice only – but I am not likely to forget them. She was called to examine a dead man who'd been found in his flat three days after the death – I had been called there, too – and the autopsy went completely wrong. She and the other doctor inspecting the body didn't agree at all on the results. It was very singular—"
"Wait," Ran said. "Do you mean to say Ikenami-san is a forensic expert?"
"Yes…" he laid his notebook on his lap. "Didn't you know?"
"No, I didn't. She never told me. Then again, she doesn't speak much."
He laughed. "No. Well, I wouldn't remember this matter so well if it hadn't occurred a second time, all over again. Another body, another practitioner with her, another autopsy – and yet the same scheme occurred. The results were completely different – and neither of them could give an explanation for this. It didn't help with the solving of the case, either, since the whole matter depended on when the man was killed." He finished writing determinedly and looked up at her. "Who else?"
Ran rapidly described Akira-san and Kenjin-san, then came more delicately to the matter of Ebihara-san. "What he's doing here, I can't imagine," she said thoughtfully. "The only think I can think of is that their study – whatever that is – needs a substantial financial background – and he has been called here for that purpose. But the whole matter is impossible to make out," she added vehemently, "They all seem to have gathered here under circumstances entirely coincidental – they never talk of anything concerning a work of any kind – their study is making no sense at all. If there is a study, that is."
"Have you ever witnessed something that makes you think there isn't one?"
"All the time. Everyday."
"Then there probably is one." He smiled and snapped his notebook shut. "Very well," he said, standing up. "I shall have to go back to Tokyo to fetch my things and cancel my cases for the upcoming weeks. I suppose I can lodge here – I will have a greater strength of action than if reside in some inn in the nearest village."
"Yes – certainly," said Ran, taken aback. "There are dozens of deserted rooms in this mansion – I can get Briggs to prepare one for you by this evening. Had you rather be on the first floor or—"
"The second floor would be perfect – I'll be able to move more freely. Well—" he extended a hand, which she shook, "thank you, for this information. I shall be back by dinnertime." She'd walked him over to the door and he opened it and faced her again. "Have a good day."
"Thank you. 'Till this evening."
She watched him walk down the corridor. He hadn't passed past a few doors that one of them opened, and a grave voice called after him, "Kudo-kun!"
"Ah – Asama-san," the younger man said, turning back. "I'm glad to see you. I wanted to tell you about—" They walked down together towards the hall, their voices gradually dropping to a whisper, then as they turned past a corner, into silence. Ran went back into the library and closed the door slowly.
She leant against the wooden panel, arms folded, and stared at the golden flickers of dust in the sunlight that fell luminously in through the windows, wondering which of them had made the greatest mistake – him in accepting the case, or herself in turning down his proposition to bow back out of the matter.
-
Shinichi's first evening among the household went off without a hitch. If the guests' defiance towards him was palpable, they nonetheless tried their best to act as genuinely as possible and put at ease; yet among them, only Asama-san and Sakagushi-san were perfectly tranquil with him and did not show any sign of exterior anxiety.
Or interior, thought Ran, who by now had come to know them well enough to be able to sight-read their body language. Their palms were open, their shoulders relaxed, their features calm, their voices clear and sound. Either they had mastered the art of Poker Face to an unmovable degree (they probably had for all she knew) or they actually felt no distrust in his presence. Which, if either of them was the Poltergeist, was rather a problem…
What about him? Did he feel anything, apart from intellectual excitement? Was this – only a case among others, a mere event in his detective career? What was he thinking, as he spoke in a low voice to Asama-san, or when he sat with his cup of coffee, like he did now, and observed the room with half-lidded eyes, almost as if he slept – blue gaze flickering from one to the other in an irregular and seemingly incoherent succession.
He had played the billiard with Akira-san, talked Kenjin-san into a half-hour long conversation, opposed an amused air to Ebihara-san's dark glares, and made Ikenami-san look up from her book by saluting her amiably – and never once the reason for his presence here was mentioned by either of them. Passing between groups, Ran tried to concentrate herself on the matter at hand, but in vain – her eyes always strayed away on him, on the person whom with he talked, on his chess moves from one to the other in the sitting-room.
By mid-evening, he was deep in conversation with Sakagushi-san and herself was seated not very far with Hikaru-san, when Araide sauntered over to him closer to him, giving Ran a sharp jolt in the plexus. The introduction was made, a hand was stretched in earnest on Araide's side, and Shinichi, after a second's hesitation, shook it.
"I've heard a lot about you," Araide said genially, "we all did here. It is a great honour knowing you. Do you know," he added more thoughtfully, "you actually look a lot like someone I knew – a boy – only he mustn't be boy by now. What say you, Ran-chan?" he called out to her, and though she had seen that coming all this while she could not help being startled. "Don't you think Kudo-kun here looks strikingly like little Conan-kun did?"
The phantom of a little boy with thick glasses rose in the middle of the room, then faltered. "Very much alike," Ran said shortly, and looked away.
"He must be something like eighteen now – went back to America with his parents ten years ago," Araide was informing Shinichi. "A very smart, clever boy – I remember he wanted to be a detective, just like—" Ran didn't wait for the end of the sentence. She walked abruptly to the nearest window and stood there in silence, arms folded, staring straight into the night outside. The dark pane reflected lights form the village, lodged narrowly between the black shapes of the mountains. She closed her eyes.
Shinichi joined her after a few minutes, having succeeded in disentangling himself from Araide's cordial grip. "I'm sorry," he murmured, sitting on the windowseat and leaning forward on his elbows. "I – should have foreseen that kind of thing coming."
Ran kept silent for a second. "Have you found anything?" she asked then, feeling that 'Conan-kun' were dangerous grounds to tread. Shinichi looked sharply at her and then away. "I'm not certain," he said slowly. "I do have suspicions. By the way, I wish you could show me the quad where you found those footsteps after the wreckage of Kyogoku-san's office, Ran-san."
Evidently he had studied the dossier in depth before dinner – he had found the weak flank of that incident immediately. "You know they'll all be gone," Ran said sternly. "It has rained ever since, and it's been more than a week."
"I know," he said. "I just want to see the location. Would you show me in the morning?"
Ran assented to that, and they remained some time longer in silence. This was growing to be more awkward then they had suspected at first. Then Shinichi was called away and Ran stayed alone in front of the dark pane, thinking, "Stupid. Stupid. Stupid."
Later that night, when she walked back to her room, it was to find a white card on her floor as she opened the door. Sighing, she picked it up. It ran, We are ten now. We can begin at last. Underneath it spread mockingly verses of a cheap riddle, which made her shudder in disgust,
Ten little Soldier boys went out to dine;
One choked his little self and then there were Nine.
Nine little Soldier boys sat up very late…
-
'And Then There Were None' was a important basis for this story, as you'll have noticed. So it was only fair to quote this awesome book. I've also quoted elements from other mystery stories along the way through the story – those who can find them get extra cookies – flavour whichever you want. ;)
Oh, speaking of which –passes plates of chocolate chip cookies- thx for reading, minna!